“The Living Gesture and the
Signifying
Moment”
Eugene Halton
Symbolic
Interaction. Jan. 2004: 27(1): 89-113.
Abstract
Drawing
from Peircean semiotics, from the Greek
conception of
phronesis, and from considerations of
bodily
awareness
as a basis of reasonableness, I attempt to show how the living
gesture touches our deepest signifying nature, the self, and public
life.
Gestural bodily awareness, more than knowledge, connects us
with the very conditions out of which the human body evolved into its
present condition, and remains a vital resource in the face of a
devitalizing,
rationalistic consumption culture.
It may be precisely these
deep-rooted
abilities for what I term self-originated
experience
that can ultimately offset
automatism.